Requiring A Doctor’s Note For Gender-Affirming Medical Care Is Stupid
This is definitely not a rant
Well, it’s not a rant for me. My surgical certainties are already solidified lol.
But for the rest of my queer community…
To my trans sisters…
To my GNC cisters…
To literally anyone facing obstacles to gender-affirming medical treatment…
Pass this message on to your doctor for me: REQUIRING A DOCTOR’S NOTE FOR GENDER-AFFIRMING MEDICAL CARE IS STUPID
The issue is that the medical profession often requires an individual seeking hormone treatment or gender-affirming surgeries to provide a letter from a counselor. The letter provides confirmation that this person understands and knows what they are doing. But for many mental health professionals — and for those like me who just write about them — this requirement has always floored them.
We allow lots of old cisgender people with tons of money to do whatever they want medically to their bodies through plastic surgery. We don’t require a mental health professional to sign off that they in fact don’t have body dysmorphia, or a delusional disorder that they are twenty years younger than their birth age.
What the increasingly-popular Adverse Child Experiences Study (ACES) found was that traumatic childhood experiences and an inability or lack of resources to process those adverse experiences into a meaningful and authentic identity leads to chronic and often fatal illnesses in adulthood.
Protective factors for trans, GNC, and otherwise queer people are often unfortunately not built into their family, community, and medical networks. Strong family bonds, for example, cultivate greater resilience that can help protect children from the detrimental effects of adverse experiences.
But what does a trans, GNC, or otherwise queer person do when their family and medical providers refuse the very care that would empower their resilience through adverse experiences?
What does a trans, GNC, or otherwise queer person do when their family and medical providers instead contribute to those adverse experiences?
In reviewing the ACES, the National Conference of State Legislatures noted that “[adverse] experiences can interfere with a person’s health, opportunities and stability throughout his or her lifetime — and can even affect future generations.”
What they need instead may require them to look outside their family. What they need instead may require them to show up for each other in ways their friends won’t, either. Some of them want to, even if they can’t. You deserve to find what will empower you to thrive.
Safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and communities help to build resilience, prevent violence, improve mental health and support health across one’s lifespan. — ACES (offsite to NCSL)
Knowing this helps me show a little compassion to the people I turned to when my own family turned against me. I needed a different kind of care to survive until I could claim what should never have been so hard to pursue.
Making gender-affirming options healthy, safe, and accessible would have transformed every aspect of my life. I can’t help but beg for those now on behalf of people who still suffer in ways from which I’m grateful to have found relief.
Because while I still bear the scars of what was done to me as much as what was denied…my life is pretty good! A great man who unfortunately turned TERF once said we need to respect that we’re all strong in different ways.
Today, I am strong in the way that lets me say this while many others cannot.
If you are a family member, friend, or medical professional who is denying care or otherwise contributing to the adverse experiences of anyone who is trans, GNC, or otherwise queer —
I hope you can forgive yourself for contributing so much to the wrong side of history ❤
For those of you who are ready to offer your support, I don’t care whether you lived a lifetime or never on the wrong side of this one, I welcome you as an ally. I am not perfect either. We’ll figure out the way forward together ❤
THE END (DAMN GIRL, THAT’S DARK)
